I have had to wait two months before I was ready to pen this second open letter.

It took two months of processing the enormity of what happened when I hit ‘publish’ on Part One of this series, before I could summon up the fire and love to write Part Two.

Let me give you a quick recap of what’s happened since publishing Part One of this letter.

About two months ago, following the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, I was driven to write what I thought would be a regular newsletter to my small but engaged community (of largely white spiritual women) on white supremacy, racism, spirituality and the complicity of entrepreneurs who do not speak up on issues of social justice.

It was a complete shock and surprise to me when this letter went viral It has now been viewed over 200,000 times at the time of writing this second letter. It has been commented on, shared, criticised, referenced, celebrated, disparaged, upheld, dragged and everything in between.

And so have I.

My words have reached far, far beyond what I could have expected, and for that I am grateful.

At the same time, I have had to process and very rapidly adjust to the sudden expansion of my business and the interest in my work. I’ve also had to deal with my fair share of internet trolls, misogynists, white supremacists and spiritual-bypassers.

It’s been quite a journey and I am still on it.

But this letter isn’t about me and my experiences. This is about white supremacy. And so I return to you today to share more on the conversation that I started two months ago.

As with my first letter, I am specifically speaking to Spiritual White Women (SWW).

I’m talking to entrepreneurs and people who hold a platform - no matter how big or small. I am speaking to the spiritual teachers, soulful coaches, heart-centered creatives, intuitive soul guides, energetic healers and transformational entrepreneurs who are dedicated to positively changing people’s lives. (However, even if you aren’t an entrepreneur or don’t have a platform, please know that what I will be sharing in this letter is helpful to you too. We need all of us to do this work).

This letter is both a call-out and a call-in. It is a call for us as leaders and change-makers to do better for ourselves and one another. It is a battle cry for justice and liberation.

And it is written with the sacred medicine of anger and love.

This time I won’t be telling you what day of my cycle I am on, or infusing these words with the healing power of reiki. I will not cushion the blow or excuse away the fire of my words.

We have opened the door now. The gloves are off. We have called a thing a thing.

Now, we must dive deeper.Now we must do the work.Let’s go.

In this second letter, I want to provide some guidance and resources on how to begin doing the work - both inside yourself and in your communities - of anti-racism and dismantling white supremacy.

I need to reiterate however, that I am not an expert, and that nothing I am sharing in this letter hasn’t already been shared by others who are far more qualified, experienced and literate in this work than I am. In fact, I feel wholly unqualified to write this letter in the first place. And yet I am writing it.

As I keep repeating to SWW who I interact with, this isn’t about being perfect.

This is about being accountable and showing up to do the work. If we waited until it was perfect, we’d never say or do anything.

I myself, as a black woman, am showing up to do my own work of educating myself through reading articles, listening to podcasts, engaging in social justice education programs and watching and listening to the teachers and advocates who have been doing this work for far longer than I have. Although I do not hold white privilege, I still need to be able to identify the ways in which I oppress myself and others through white supremacist and patriarchal ideology. Also, while I may not hold white privilege I do hold other privileges (e.g. cis-gendered, straight, able-bodied, class, etc) which I need to unpack and work through.

White supremacy isn’t just about neo-Nazis rallying in Charlottesville. In fact, that’s a very extreme manifestation of this system and ideology of oppression. White supremacy (and patriarchy) is in our everyday lives. It seeps into everything that we do. It influences the way we think and see the world, and the way we interact with each other. It informs how we live and work because it is the very foundation upon which places like the USA, Canada, the UK, Europe and Australia are based on.

And it is certainly a dominant paradigm that influences the world of online business.

If you hold white privilege, then white supremacy is the air you breathe and the toxic sea you’re swimming.

You can’t see yourself as perpetuating white supremacy because you have been conditioned to believe that the way you see the world is the way that everyone else sees the world too. But that just isn’t true. White supremacy centers and serves whiteness, while de-centering and oppressing people of colour (POC). You as a white person are seen as normal, and non-white people are seen as ‘other’. White-centric programs/summits/conferences are seen as being for everyone. Non-white centric programs/summits/conferences are seen as being exclusively for POC.

It is not as simple as not using racial slurs. We are socialised into white supremacy from the moment we are born. So it’s not enough to say ‘But I love black people!’. It is about completely dismantling how you see yourself and how you see the world, so that you can dismantle how white supremacy functions as an institutional and ideological system of oppression.

If I, as black woman, am making it a priority to do this work for myself, then you as a white person have an even greater responsibility to do this work.

It is your work to do.

Remember: Even if you hate the fact that you have white privilege and do not agree with white supremacist ideology, if you are white or a white-passing person, you are still a beneficiary of a system that oppresses non-white people. Racism is not a problem that POC created. And we do not benefit from it in any way. So you have a duty and a responsibility to use the privilege that this system has given you from birth to dismantle it - both within yourself, in your communities and in your institutions.

A few weeks ago, while feeling frustrated and exhausted from white people asking me for free emotional labour work and problematic comments on my social media posts from well-meaning spiritual white women, I published the following post on my private FB page:

“I have a lot of white friends here on FB. Some of whom are doing the work of dismantling oppression (within themselves and their communities) and some who aren't.

I need to know who I can call on or tag to support me with emotional labour when a problematic white person wanders into my comments and starts to whitesplain to me how I should work or live.

Being a truth-teller who is a black woman means I face an inevitable backlash of comments soaking in both white supremacist ideology and patriarchal bullshit anytime I call a thing out for what it is. It is exhausting and it takes up a lot of emotional labour.

Who of my white friends can I call on for support with this? Who is willing to step in if I tag you and handle these problematic and privileged comments? Who is actually willing to step in and do the work, no matter how imperfectly? Who actually has my back?

Please comment below if you are here to support me (and other marginalised folk) in this way.

If you've been thinking 'how can I use my white privilege for good?' - this is how.”

I was delighted to have almost 250 white friends raise their hands and say ‘Yes - count me in. I’m here for you’. However, what I noticed is that many of them also had the caveat of ‘I’m not going to be anywhere near perfect at this, but I’ll try my best’.

I am dedicating this letter to those who wrote that caveat, and to anyone who is reading this letter and feeling the exact same way.

I understand that you want to be able to do this work, but you’re afraid that you’re going to get it wrong. And guess what? You probably will! You’ll probably make mistakes or say the wrong thing or inadvertently cause more harm than good.

Why?

Because you’ve probably never done this before in a big way, or feel you don’t know enough to handle these kinds of conversations with confidence. Also, you might find it uncomfortable to call out other white folks because you can see where they are coming from, and you know that in the past you’ve probably done exactly what they’re doing right now, because you didn’t know any better.

So if you are like one of the white people who raised their hands on my FB post and said, ‘YES, Count me in for being an ally to you and other people of colour in my community. I’m ready to use my white privilege for good!’, then you’ve got some work to do if you want to make sure that you don’t make as many mistakes and that you don’t do more harm than good.

YES to constantly doing the work within myself of identifying how I oppress others and myself, and doing the work of calling myself out when I do harm - whether I meant it or not.

YES to listening to people of colour and other marginalised folk when they are taking the time to educate me for free, and not telling them how I think they should see things or what I think they should do.

YES to speaking up as often as possible in my personal and professional environments about this work and to calling out / calling in white privilege and oppression when I see it.

YES to supporting POC and other marginalised folk by reading and listening to their work, buying their services and products, inviting them onto my summits, podcasts and programs, and cultivating relationships with people of colour that are ‘transformational and not transactional’ (hat tip to Desiree Adaway for this quote). In other words, not using POC as tokens, but having real and respectful relationships with them of mutual support.

YESto doing the work of educating myself instead of expecting people of colour to tell me what to do or expecting them to make it comfortable for me to unpack my own privilege.

YES to seeing my spirituality as a way to engage deeper into this work rather than as a way to bypass this work, and to recognising that being devoted to Spirit means being devoted to social justice.

YESto taking an honest look at my business and the way that I may be perpetuating white supremacy through it (e.g. through cultural appropriation, mainly highlighting white people, refusing to speak on social justice, etc.) and doing what I can to change that.

YESto doing this work every day, even when I get it wrong, even when it’s hard, even when it feels like I’m not good enough at it - because it’s not about me.

YES to not just doing this work when it is convenient or comfortable for me, or because I think that talking about social justice will somehow enhance my business brand, but because it’s the right thing to do.

YES to bringing my anger to the table and using it in conscious ways to call out spiritual-bypassing, white-washing, light-washing, racism, misogyny and microaggressions when I see them happening.

YES to calling out and not engaging in cultural appropriation – which is rampant in the world of spiritual entrepreneurship.

YES to staying in my own lane and using my unique spiritual gifts to show up in sacred activism – whether as a writer, an artist, a facilitator, a speaker, a healer, a teacher or a guide.

YES to setting my ego and fragility aside so that I can do what’s right instead of what is easy.

YES to not letting guilt or making mistakes get in the way of me continuing to show up.

YES to apologising when I get it wrong and taking accountability for the harm that I’ve done.

YES to forgiving myself and educating myself, so that I can do better next time.

And lastly, for those of us who identify as priestesses, YES to understanding that doing this work also means saying YES to the Dark Goddess.

Not as a deity to be worshipped. But as an embodied practice of working with the Dark Feminine within yourself.

The times that we are now living in and the work of social justice necessitates having a relationship to and embodiment of aspects of ourselves that patriarchal white supremacy has deemed as wrong, deviant or dangerous.

The Dark Feminine and her myths from around the world as Kali Ma, Inanna & Ereshkigal, Demeter & Persphone, Isis, Sekhmet, Cerridwen, Hecate, Pele, Durga, Oya, Lilith, Baba Yaga and many more, have so much to teach us about what it means to embrace and transform the shadow – both within ourselves and in the collective consciousness.

I will be writing and speaking much more about the Dark Goddess in the future, but for now what I want to say about this archetype is that through her myths, she teaches us the importance of transformational portals like rage, death & rebirth, grief, power, the mystery of not knowing all the answers, sexuality, no-bullshit truth-telling, strong boundaries and doing what is right rather than what is comfortable.

To the extent that we are unable to tolerate and embrace these dark aspects, we will similarly be unable to do the work of sacred activism.

If you cannot be with your own rage, then you cannot be with the rage that arises when a POC is getting frustrated with you because of your white privileged behavior.

If you cannot be with your own grief, then you cannot be with the grief that POC feel as a result of living with the constant trauma of being oppressed and discriminated against.

If you cannot be with your own power, then you cannot make space for POC exerting their power through their voice, their boundary-setting and their no bullshit truth-telling.

If you truly want to do this work then saying YES to all of the above is a non-negotiable.

Anything less than this is performative. It is wanting to give the perception of allyship and solidarity, without fully committing to it.

And if a part of you is saying ‘Layla, you’re asking too much of me. I don’t know if I can do that’, then know that that in itself is privilege in action. Doing this work is an option for you because of your privilege. It is not an option for black and brown people, because it directly affects our lives.

I also hear the highly sensitive, introverted empaths in the back saying, ‘But this will exhaust me!’.

Guess what? There are highly sensitive, introverted empaths who are black and brown (like myself!) who are exhausted too. Sadly, we don’t get to opt out.

I’m not saying don’t tend to your self-care needs to do this work.

I’m not saying sacrifice your mental and emotional safety to do this work.

I’m not saying nothing else matters except this work.

I’m saying you can do both.

You can do this work, and tend to your needs.Most POC you know are doing both all the time.Whether we want to or not.

Remember, I am not asking you to do any of this perfectly. I am asking you to do it sincerely and with integrity.

In the final part of this letter, I want to share some links and resources for you to begin diving into.

It goes without saying that this list is not exhaustive.

It’s a starting point. It’s a way in. I will be adding this list as a separate Resources page on my site in the future, and adding to it whenever I come across helpful resources. But remember, this isn't my work to do. It is yours (if you have white privilege).

Please also remember that I regularly write about and hold conversations around these topics on myblog, my podcast, and now on Patreon.

"My response to racism is anger. I have lived with that anger, ignoring it, feeding upon it, learning to use it before it laid my visions to waste, for most of my life. Once I did it in silence, afraid of the weight. My fear of anger taught me nothing. Your fear of that anger will teach you nothing, also."

Lately I have been thinking about anger, and its uses.

And I have been thinking about the Dark Goddess and her role in the cycles of spiritual death and rebirth.

And I have been thinking about how all of this intersects with spiritual activism and how I want to continue cultivating conversations in my online spaces.

If you've read any of my writing, you'll know that I run with a lot of fire energy.

My writing is direct, fierce and activating. I write with purpose to tell my truths, and to set fire to old and broken paradigms so that newer, true-er growth can come through. I write to burn down and destroy what is no longer working, so that more love, truth and justice can be experienced by us all.

As a woman on the priestess path, I always find a way of relating my understanding of my soul work back to the archetypes and mythologies of goddesses. It will come as no surprise that I work closely with the goddess in her dark form (also know as the Dark Mother, the Dark Woman or the Dark Feminine).

The Dark Goddess has been known in many forms around the world, but the two that often fuel my writing around social justice are the Ancient Egyptian goddess Sekhmet (whose image has been on my phone for the last few months) and the Hindu goddess Kali*.

Sekhmet, whose name means 'Powerful One' or 'She Who Is Powerful', is known as the lion-headed warrior goddess who was sent by Ra to punish mankind because he was angry that they were not preserving the sacred principle of Ma'at, or justice. The sun disk on her head is said to represent the searing heat of the mid-day sun, and she was named 'The One Who Loves Ma'at (justice) and Who Detests Evil'.

Sekhmet was known by some as the 'lady of terror' because of the terrifying way that she rampaged through the fields with her unquenchable lust for human blood.

Eventually Ra realised that things were getting out of hand. He tried to get Sekhmet to stop, but she wouldn't. So he tricked her by pouring 7,000 jugs of beer and pomegranate juice in her path, which she thought to be blood. She drank the 'blood' and eventually passed out for 3 days. When she finally awoke, her bloodlust had dissipated and her rampaging ended.

Kali or Kali Ma, is the Hindu deity known as the Dark Mother. Kali is the goddess of creation and destruction. Death and rebirth.

She is a ferocious warrioress who fights against evil and injustice. In the Hindu religious text called the Devi Mahatmya, Kali is described as being born from the brow of the Goddess Durga during her great battle with the demon Mahishasura. Kali, who is thought to be a manifestation of Durga's anger, leaps forth from Durga's brow to help defeat the demons Shimba and Nishumba, and later the demon Raktabija. Kali's creation story in the Devi Mahatmya is described as follows:

"Out from the surface of her forehead, fierce with frown, issued suddenly Kali of terrible countenance, armed with a sword and noose. Bearing the strange skull-topped staff, decorated with a garland of skulls, clad in a tiger’s skin, very appalling owing to her emaciated flesh, with gaping mouth, fearful with her tongue lolling out, having deep-sunk reddish eyes and filling the regions of the sky with her roars, and falling upon impetuously and slaughtering the great asuras in that army, she devoured those hosts of the foes of the devas."

However, like Sekhmet, Kali's rampaging soon got out of control and she was destroying everything in sight.

In order to stop her, Lord Shiva threw himself in front of her path and lay under her feet. Kali was so shocked at this sight that she stopped immediately and stuck her tongue out in astonishment. This surprising act by Shiva finally ended her rampaging and indiscriminate destruction of everything in sight.

Why do I share these goddess stories? What does this have to do with racism, my spiritual activist writing or my work as a priestess?

Everything. It has everything to do with them.

The energy and anger behind my writing is very much like Sekhmet ragefully devouring humans because they would not uphold justice, and Kali ferociously leaping from Durga's brow to defeat the demons that had brought evil and destruction to humankind. These goddesses are devouring in nature. And from the feedback that I often receive about my work, my writing can feel devouring too.

My writing unmasks.

It names what we are not supposed to name.

It forcefully strips back layers of lies and deception, so that things can be seen, acknowledged and accepted for what they are.

It demands nothing less than full truth and integrity.

It is a raging fire, burning down the white towers of injustice.

These goddesses had to fight fire with fire.

They could not ask nicely. They could not wish love & light onto the situation. They could not focus on manifesting positivity and hope that they would create what they focused on. They were fighting evil and injustice, for goddess sake! And what is white supremacy and racism, if not evil and injustice? They knew that in order to defeat these forces, they needed to work with their anger. To use it purposefully and unapologetically. To fully own it.

Yes, I am angry.

I am angry with the spiritual white women who, instead of using their spirituality for justice, use it to silence and gaslight black women and women of colour.

I am angry with the spiritual white women who say they want to help heal the world, but instead do a lot of harm and damage by refusing to acknowledge their privilege or their role as oppressors in a system designed to advantage them, at the expense of others.

I am angry with the spiritual white women who invoke the goddess to manifest their best life, but refuse to work with her in her angry, grieving dark form to bring about justice.

I am angry with the spiritual white women who do deep work with their clients on the witch wound or patriarchal wounds, but do not even acknowledge the slave wound of the white supremacy wounds (which therefore makes their work extremely white-centered, and negates the very real experiences of their community members who are black or people of colour).

I am angry with the spiritual white women who are happy to culturally appropriate goddesses and spiritual guides from various cultures and traditions that are not theirs, but host online spiritual summits and transformational events with speaker lists that are 90% white.

I am angry at spiritual white women for a million reasons, and I use my anger to write to them in the hopes of activating awakening and change.

As Audre Lorde says in the talk on anger quoted at the start of this article:

"Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change. And when I speak of change, I do not mean a simple switch of positions or a temporary lessening of tensions, nor the ability to smile or feel good. I am speaking of a basic and radical alteration in those assumptions underlining our lives."

So yes, I use my anger. And I will not apologise for it because it is useful, and it is mine.

And, at the same time, it is important to hold in mind the stories of Sekhmet and Kali letting their anger get out of control and destroying everything in sight without discernment or wisdom.

As Audre Lorde says in her talk on The Uses of Anger:

"Everything can be used / except what is wasteful / (you will need / to remember this when you are accused of destruction’)."

In other words, anger is a powerful tool however it loses its power when it becomes wasteful. When it becomes bloodlust. When it becomes bullying, shaming and unnecessary aggression.

When it begins to use you, instead of you using it.

This anger is not helpful and is not the type of anger I want to work with or encourage. This is why when we are using anger, we must be mindful in our use of it. So that in our trying to devour systems and ideologies of oppression, we do not end up devouring ourselves and the humanity of others in the process.

As someone who works so closely with anger and the goddess in her dark form, this is a lesson that I must continuously be learning.

As a black woman who has been conditioned to bite her tongue and stuff her anger back inside herself for survival in white-centered and male-centered spaces, allowing myself to feel and express my anger is one of the most liberating and empowering things that I can do. However I do not wish to allow my anger to turn into unconscious and self-destructive harm.

So this is a tightrope I am always walking and a paradigm that I am always exploring:

How can I rightfully and righteously express my anger as a black woman, a dark goddess priestess and a spiritual activist writer, without allowing my anger to devolve into attack, aggression and unconscious rage? Layer on top of this question the way that misogynoir tone-polices black women with the 'angry black woman' trope, and my own internalised oppression from patriarchy and white supremacy, and it gets even messier.

How do I know when I am consciously using my anger to create change, or when I am destructively using my anger to do harm?

How do I know when my anger is being used for intentional death & rebirth, or when it is being used for intentional death & destruction?

How do I know when my anger is coming from my power as a black woman, or when it is coming from my wounds as a black woman?(And how do I know that one isn't as valid as the other?)

I don't have all the answers to these questions. And I certainly know that I'll never have it all perfectly figured out. But I know it's important to keep returning to this question:

Am I using my anger, or is my anger using me?

One serves, one destroys.

I pray that as often as possible, I can come from a place of service and not destruction. And I ask that when you interact in my online spaces, you try as often as possible to come from a place of service rather than destruction, too.

This does NOT mean black women and women of colour tone-policing themselves, tamping down on their righteous anger or conforming with white supremacist standards of being 'nice'. Messages like this are harmful and perpetuate the very oppression that we are trying to free ourselves from.

It also does NOT mean white women avoiding their responsibility of directly calling a thing a thing because they fear what it will do to their reputation or brand. Messages like this give white women an excuse to hide behind, when what we really need are white women willing to step up more and put their reputations and brands on the line in the name of justice.

What it does mean however is checking your intentions and asking yourself - am I writing to serve, or am I writing to destroy?

Ultimately, only YOU can know when your anger comes to serve or to destroy. And I will call you and myself in when I feel our anger is not being of service, or when it feels like the bloodlust of our anger is doing unnecessary harm.

But this is the thing about doing this work. There are no neat boxes or easy-to-follow instructions on how to get this right. And the dynamics of white supremacy, white privilege, the historical and modern-day silencing of black women and women of colour, and the use of the internet as a means of mass communication mean that the answer is rarely ever going to be that straight forward.

In practicing our uses of anger through this work, I pray that we will continue to grow and learn together - with truth, justice and love as our teachers.

What I do know for sure is that at this point in history, we need anger. The appropriate response to racism is anger. And like the dark goddesses Sekhmet and Kali, we must use our anger to dismantle the evil and injustices of racism.

As I finish up this essay, I want to say one last thing about Sekhmet and Kali.

Though both of these goddesses are described as terrifying, destructive and devouring, what we must also remember is that they have other sides to them that are healing and nurturing.

Although Sekhmet was known as the 'lady of terror', she was also known as the 'lady of life'.

She was the patron of physicians and healers, and her priests became known as skilled doctors. It was said that for her friends, she could avert plagues and cure diseases. She was just as much a healer as she was a destroyer.

As for Kali, she is often referred to lovingly as Mother Kali.

And although she is a fierce destroyer, it is thought that the impetus behind her destruction is to make space for rebirth. The darkness that she represents is often likened to the warm and unfathomable darkness of the womb. Though she destroys, she also creates. And without her destruction, creation could not take place. She devours all that is not working for us - fear, darkness, (unconscious) anger, self-destructive behaviour and injustice. Her devouring makes way for the birth of that which can better serve us.

I share this last part to remind us that the goddesses, like us, are complex and multidimensional. We are not always angry, always rageful, always devouring. We are loving and healing and nurturing, too.

And what may look like on the surface to be uncontrolled anger, destruction and rage may actually be truth, justice and love.

*Important note about speaking on Kali: It is important for me to note that I am not Hindu, and do not wish to culturally appropriate deities of the Hindu religion, such as Kali. While Sekhmet is from the Ancient Egyptian pantheon, Kali is part of a religion that is alive and thriving, with over a billion adherents worldwide. I want to make it clear that when I speak on Kali, I am not speaking as an expert or a worshipper. She is not mine to claim as my own. However, I would be remiss to mention her in this essay, as she is such a potent manifestation of the dark goddess, and has had such a huge impact on both my personal spiritual journey and my spiritual activist writing. Despite that, I want to make it very clear that she is not mine to own, and my intention is never to act as if she is. Thank you.

P.S. Pssst! Do you love my work and want to support my writing?

I now have a Patreon page! Click here to visit my page where I'm creating fire words of truth, justice and love. You can pledge your support as a patron for as little as $1 a month! (Although more would be appreciated ;)).

On my Patreon page you'll find more of my musings and conversations on sacred activism, spirituality, business and leadership. I'd love to have you join me on Patreon, as I'm planning to share more of my writing there and less on social media.

Yesterday I was planning on releasing a new podcast episode with one of my dear friends, all about intuition and running a business as a mystic entrepreneur.

But I couldn’t do that yesterday.

Because this past weekend a white supremacist rally took place in the US and it’s all that’s on my mind.

So today I want to share my thoughts on racism, sacred activism and the responsibilities of those who choose to walk the priestess path. I’m also going to talk about white privilege and the role that white women must play in combating white supremacy.

Before you start reading this though, I have 10 things that I need you to know:

This is a long letter. It’s actually way longer than I was expecting it to be, so I’m splitting it into two parts. I’ll be publishing Part 2 in a few days time.

Before hitting publish on this letter, I have infused it with the healing energy of reiki. My constant prayer when I write is for my words to be of service. I am a word witch who uses words as a portal for healing and activation. As you read these words you may feel triggers rise up (especially if you are white). I have included reiki with these words not because I want to protect you from your own triggers but because I don’t want you to get so stuck in the paralysis of shame that you don’t do anything with what you may read here. Talking about white supremacy is talking about the shadow. When we go into the shadow, we must go wisely. Reiki is included not to make you more comfortable, but to make you more courageous so that you can face your own shadow behaviours and beliefs head on, and do what must be done to heal and move past them.

I’m going to do this imperfectly. I’m not an expert on social justice. I am a spiritual mentor, teacher and healer who feels strongly about sacred activism. If I say something that is inaccurate, presumptious or that shows my own privilege without acknowledging it, I want to apologise in advance. However, just because I’m going to do this imperfectly does not mean that I should not do it at all. This is a problem that I see many people struggle with. Their fear of speaking out imperfectly or of being criticised stops them from saying anything at all. I’m not going to allow my fear to do that to me. So my words will be imperfect. But I pray that both the intention and impact of my words are of service.

I do not live in the USA. However, many members of my community do, which is why it’s important for me to speak up. And, I am a black muslim woman with a platform and I believe I have a role to play, small though it may be, in our collective healing. So again, I will speak up. Also, while I may be referring to the US in this letter, I’m also talking about all countries where white supremacy exists and where white nationalism is on the rise.

I want to acknowledge those people who have activism as their soul’s work. People like Desiree Adaway, Andrea Ranae, and so many more have taught me and countless others so much. I will be including references to their work in Part 2 and many others, because their work is invaluable.

If you are not comfortable with me using words like white supremacy and white privilege, or you want me to stay away from the political and stick to the spiritual, or you use phrases like #notallwhitepeople or #alllivesmatter, then this is where we need to part ways. I’m not here for that. I’m not here for lightwashing, spiritual bypassing or entrepreneurs who claim that their work is about empowering others but do not extend that past their own privilege.

I’m on day 31/32 of my cycle as I write this. I can literally feel my womb burning, waiting to release. So you are getting my words in the Wild Woman / Crone phase of my cycle. I’m fired up. I’m not going to dance around the subject. I stand for the Truth. I will not mince my words. If it seems like I’m being judgemental, I am. That’s the very least white supremacy, racial hatred and domestic terrorism deserve. Perhaps you are a person who is deeply uncomfortable with rage or you have trauma around anger. Digest this slowly. But digest it. We need righteous anger to fight hatred. Know that my anger comes not for the sake of anger, but for the sake of love. Deep. Fierce. Love.

I’m going to share a few of my own experiences with racism and discrimination. I do not share these for your pity. I share them for context and to evoke your heart to step up.

As a person of colour, it took a lot of emotional labour to write this. Dismantling white supremacy is the charge of white people who are the sole beneficiaries of this oppressive system (whether they want to be or not). But I share these words because as a priestess who guides a community of largely white women, I have a divine responsibility to use my spiritual gifts - my words - to support the healing of the world. That being said, when you have read all of this (and the resources I will be sharing in Part 2) please don’t come back to me and expect me or other people of colour to keep doing the work for you. Google is a wonderful tool. So is your own intuition. Use them.

The reason why it’s really important for me to share this letter is because I have a *lot* of white women in my community. And without meaning to, a lot of times nice, well-meaning white women can contribute in a big way to the problems we see because they don’t speak up, or they want to keep things polite, or they think the best thing they can do is just focus on being a loving person rather than ‘getting involved in politics’. This white silence, white privilege and white shame leads to a lot of white complicity in white supremacy. So when I talk about the work that needs to be done, I’m talking much more to white women than I am to women of colour. It is not on people of colour to fight white supremacy or racism. It is on white people. And if you are a white woman entrepreneur with a platform (no matter how big or small), I am particularly talking to you and calling you in.

Ok, so let’s dive in.

There are many things that I want to talk about, and it is hard to know where to begin.

At the weekend I started by re-sharing two articles that I wrote earlier this year. One is called Rise Of The Priestess Activist and the other is called Dear White Supremacy. Both were written just after Donald Trump began his presidency and around the time of the Muslim ban. That was a scary time to be in. But right now is far, far scarier.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few days, you’ll know that a white nationalist rally took place in Charlottesville in the US over the weekend. Many were injured. A woman, Heather Heyer, who was known as a passionate advocate for the disenfranchised, was killed. A young black man was surrounded by these hateful neo-Nazis and beaten with poles. Yes, POLES.

The images of angry white men rallying with torches is one of the most frightening things I’ve seen in recent times.

This image chills me to the bone every time I see it.

I’m not a US citizen.

But I am a black muslim woman. I carry within me both the experience from my own lifetime of racism and discrimination, and the collective trauma of belonging to a people who were slaves for centuries.

Last year when I was moving through my Divine Feminine spiritual awakening, I remember reading about the witch burnings. And how, as women and modern day witches and priestesses, we carry this trauma of being burned with us even today. And how that fear holds us back from speaking up and being seen in our full wild mystic power. I see many women in the spiritual community who understand just how much of a trauma this is for women, and who are doing the deep work of healing the witch wound and reclaiming their right to be here in their full authentic presence.

But can you imagine how it is for people of colour?

Can you imagine the trauma we carry from centuries of slavery, police brutality, discrimination and racial hatred?

The witch burnings happened at one period of time and yet we still remember. Imagine how it is for black people and people of colour. The hateful treatment against us never ended. It just went underground. And now it is resurfacing, emboldened by leaders like Donald Trump and others like him.

This weekend the KKK marched without their hoods. Do you understand what that means?

Can you imagine if a powerful group rose up in the western country you live in who wanted to burn women as witches, and they were seen as being legitimised by the country’s president? That sounds ridiculous right? And yet an angry mob of KKK white supremacists just marched with burning torches screaming racist and anti-semitic slogans in Charlottesville USA this weekend. And Donald Trump and others have said too little, too late.

People have often asked me where I’m from.

I was born and grew up in Cardiff, Wales. I have lived in Wales, Africa, England and Qatar. I am a first generation British daughter of immigrant parents. My mother is from Zanzibar (a small island off Tanzania) and my father is from Mombasa (Kenya’s second largest city). My parents’ families are also both originally from Oman in the Arabian Gulf. I moved from the UK to Qatar when I was 15 years old. So I’m an African-Arab British muslim woman who lives in the Middle East.

I share all of this to give you more context of where I am speaking from.

I’m a Divine Feminine spiritual mentor and teacher whose identities span both East and West, and whose audience is made up of mainly white women.

This puts me in a very odd but unique position to speak on some of today’s issues to my particular audience.

I know intimately what it’s like to grow up in the UK in the 80s and 90s and be bullied, laughed at and teased because of my skin colour, my culture, my religion and my hair.

That is not to say I had a terrible childhood. I had a great childhood that was privileged in many other ways. But I also grew up always knowing that I was ‘other’. And that affected me in many ways into my adulthood of which I have had to do a lot of healing and reclamation work around.

One memory sticks out in particular.

The house I grew up in, in Wales, was right next to a children’s park.

My brother and I would go there everyday by ourselves, especially when the weather was good, to play on the swings and slides. We loved that park.

But one day, when I was about 6 or 7 years old, a new boy started coming to play at the park.

And the first time I saw him, he sneered at me and told me that my skin was the colour of poop.

My face still feels red just thinking about it. I felt so ashamed. I couldn’t say a thing. All I felt was the shame of being in the skin that I was in. Of not being white like everyone else. I ran straight home with tears in my eyes.

After that day I refused to go to the park anymore without my mum. I never told her what happened. I felt too ashamed to even say it to her. I believed that everyone must be laughing at me and people who looked like me, because our skin looked like the colour of poop. I took that shame and buried it deep inside myself. I internalised this idea that I was other. That I was in some way, wrong. And that I was less than. And most damaging of all, that I did not deserve to be seen, because you know, my skin was the colour of poop. I recognise how ridiculous that sounds now, but as a 7 year old I took it as total truth.

As I grew up, I experienced more instances of racial prejudice like this. Some small, some big.

Each time, I took these situations and buried them deep inside of myself, adding to this story that being who I was was intrinsically wrong and unworthy. I had lots of friends growing up. Most of them white. And while I loved them deeply, and I knew they loved me, I never quite shook off the feeling that I was in many ways less deserving of love and visibility than they were.

Because of the colour of my skin.

In the summer of 1999, when I was 15 years old, our family moved from the UK to Qatar after my dad was head-hunted for a job.

Up until that point, I had always been in the minority (black and muslim). But moving to the Middle East was a revelation. I was now the norm. People who looked like me and who worshipped like me were not the odd ones out. We were the majority. And that really turned my paradigms of what was normal upside down and inside out. I no longer had to be ashamed of the colour of my skin, or my culture, or my hair or my parents’ mother tongue or the way we worshipped. For the first time it felt like my identity was validated.

That summer, another important event took place.

I was in the library searching for some books to help me pass the summertime while we waited for school to begin. I stumbled across the book Roots by Alex Haley. First published in 1976, Roots tells the story of Kunta Kinte - an 18th century African who was captured and sold into slavery in America. The book follows his life and the life of his seven generations of his descendants all the way to the author himself, Alex Haley. The book was massive and so I thought it would keep occupied for at least a few days.

Little did I know that I was about to get an education in the horrific history of slavery, racial discrimination and white supremacy.

Up until that point I had never heard of or studied anything to do with slavery. I was horrified as I read about slave ships, people being sold as if they were cattle, the rape of black slave women by their white masters and the terrifying punishments inflicted upon any slave who tried to escape.

The most shocking thing I remember reading in that book was a passage where a discussion was taking place about how black people weren’t actually considered fully human. They weren’t considered to have souls, so they were not human, so they did not deserve to be treated with the same level of equality and justice as a white person.

My 15 year old self could not wrap my brain around this. Of course we are human! That doesn’t even make sense, I thought. And yet, that was the belief. At the time I rationalised it away by saying to myself, maybe that’s how it was in the past, but it’s not like that anymore.

But still, reading that book made a huge impact on how I saw myself as a black person in the world.

Fast forward 18 years later to this weekend and these images.

Oh yes. White supremacy is still alive and kicking.

Slavery may not (technically) be legal. But racism flourishes. And so do the oppressive systems of white supremacy that allow white privilege and racial discrimination to still exist.

The personal anecdotes I’ve mentioned above are sad, but they are nothing compared to the exhausting and scary reality that many black people and people of colour live through everyday in western or white-majority countries.

We are not living in a post-racial world. While the events in Charlottesville may be shocking and outrageous to many white people. It is sadly not for many black people and people of colour. From the time we were 6 or 7 years old, we already knew that we were other. We already knew that society did not center us as normal or beloved or worthy of just treatment. We’ve known this our whole lives. We have been taking on this burden of white supremacy and fighting this shit our whole. damn. lives.

Which brings me to you, my dear white sister.

I’m wondering how you’re feeling right now as you are reading this letter.

Uncomfortable? Outraged? Helpless? Ashamed? Wanting to do everything you can to stop this and yet feeling like you have no idea what you can do or say?

I hear you. It’s overwhelming and confusing and triggering as hell.

But while for you this may be really emotionally distressing, for people of colour this is way more than that. This is about the right to black lives. About black human rights. About the simple right to exist in the skin we were born in without harassment, discrimination or injustice.

White shame, white fragility, white privilege and white silence are a HUGE part of the problem.

You did not create white supremacy. But you benefit from it every day because of the white skin you were born in.

Even if you don’t want your privilege, you still have it, because white supremacy exists and is the dominant paradigm of places like the US, the UK, Europe and Australia. As a white person, you have the privilege of being able to say, ‘high vibes only’ and ‘I don’t follow the news because it’s too political’ and ‘I just want to focus on love and light’.

This is not okay. And it’s up to you to do your part to dismantle white supremacy.

Because it is literally destroying black lives.

In Part 2 of this letter I’m going to sharing my thoughts on the very real challenges of being a highly sensitive sacred activist, and I will be sharing a PDF resource with lots of links and resources for you to read, share and use. For the rest of this letter, I want to talk about the responsibility that white women entrepreneurs in the spiritual/self-help world have to speak up and take action.

So let’s talk about the hypocrisy of entrepreneurs who claim that their work is all about empowering others, and yet, when the time comes to speak up about white supremacist Nazis and racial injustice, they are silent.

As my friend Jess Sells Wertmansaid, “Know the difference between a leader and a marketer. Many marketers like to style themselves as leaders, but that doesn't mean they ARE.”

Many so-called leaders in the online business world tell us that their work is about changing the world, leading revolutions and transforming people’s lives. And yet… in the face of racism and injustice they say next to nothing or simply re-share someone else’s inspirational meme. This isn’t okay with me. It is my belief that if you have a platform, you also have a responsibility.

And the bigger your platform, the bigger your responsibility.

But what I am witnessing is that many (but certainly not all) of those with bigger platforms are much more hesitant to speak out. Perhaps because of how it might affect their positioning or the optics of their brand. Or perhaps because, as Jess said, they are more marketers than leaders. Or maybe their leadership only extends to becoming a big brand name and getting featured on Oprah’s SuperSoul 100 list.

These are not my leaders. I refuse to give my time and money to leaders who perpetuate what writer and feminist marketing consultant Kelly Diels has labelled the Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand or FLEB for short.

Kelly describes FLEB as both:

An archetype women must comply with and embody in order to be deserving of rights and resources, AND

A marketing strategy that leverages social status and white privilege to create authority over other women.

FLEB is complicit in upholding white patriarchal supremacy.

FLEB focuses on the empowerment of the individual, rather than the collective. And if it does focus on the collective, it’s often focused on a very narrow view of who that collective is (which as you’ve guessed it, is usually white women). FLEB casually uses the hard-earned language of activism and revolution to sell empowerment to those who already hold a lot of privilege in this world.

In the spiritual business world, I’ve seen FLEB perpetuated by white women entrepreneurs who devote themselves to doing deep spiritual work for themselves and their clients, and yet remain absolutely silent on anything to do with politics and justice.

I’ve seen it perpetuated by white women who believe that the best thing they can do is just focus on being a good and loving person, and serving their (largely white) audience and sending love and light instead of actually speaking up.

It absolutely boggles my mind that there are spiritual entrepreneurs who do not see the clear link between the work they do as healers, mentors and teachers for their paying clients, and the work that’s needed in the world for our collective healing and liberation.

And this is not to say that your whole business has to become about activism. That isn’t what I’m saying at all. I’m also not saying don’t do the work that you have been doing or don’t serve the audience you have been serving. What I’m saying is, open up your eyes and take a more expanded view of what your role is here.

I’m saying you are kidding yourself if you don’t believe that it is your responsibility as a spiritual teacher, healer, mentor or guide to say something and do something about what you see happening in the world.

When I think of the great mother goddesses and Divine Feminine teachers who guide my path (Isis, Kali Ma, Kuan Yin, Mary Magdalene, Diana, Joan Of Arc, Mother Mary, to name a few), I see women who were committed to the whole world’s healing and liberation. And not the privileged few who could afford to work with them and who fit into the mould of the archetype of the Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brand.

If you truly live your life guided by the Goddess, and you are not doing your part to dismantle white supremacy, then you’ve got work to do.

The Goddess isn’t just here for the liberation of white women.

She’s here for the liberation of us all.

Whew. This is a lot isn’t it?

When I first started writing this letter, I did not anticipate it would be this long. I knew I had a lot to say but writing this letter seems to be activating me too. Clarifying my purpose. Burning away the irrelevant masks and helping me to become a clearer channel of service.

But this is also where I hit a wall, got a headache and started crying.

So I intuitively knew it was time for me to step away from writing instead of forcing the rest of the letter through.

I’ll be back in a few days time with Part 2 of this letter. I pray these words are of service.

Why are we so afraid to be Wild Mystic Women?

Because the world fears wildness, mysticism and women.

And it has taught us to fear ourselves, too.

Over the past year or so I have done a lot of inner work to excavate, revive, heal, reclaim, integrate and rebirth my inner Wild Mystic Woman.

I have read countless books and articles on the Divine Feminine and feminist spirituality. Each lunar cycle I have carried out rituals of releasing and healing. I have hired energy healers and spiritual mentors to support me through reiki, Akashic records sessions, card readings, flower essences and healing my relationship with money. Hell, I even became an energy healer so I could do the work for myself!

I have worked with archetypes to help me access parts of myself I had forgotten. I have done an incredible amount of work on healing my mother wound and my relationship with my mother.

I have cried rivers of tears that fully acknowledge the grief, rage, shame and unworthiness I have carried around with me all my life.

I have told my unapologetic truths both to myself and to community. I have read and written poetry to help me honour my darkness and remember my light. I have worked with the cards everyday to help my tune into my own intuitive guidance. I have meditated my way back to presence.

I have prayed and prayed for my words and my work to be of service.

I have done my inner soulwork and my outer soul's work in devotion to the truth of my inner Wild Mystic Woman.

And yet I can still find myself crying on the bathroom floor.

Feeling misunderstood, feared and ashamed of being a Wild Mystic Woman in a world that misunderstands, fears and shames wild mystic women.

This month is an intense month for us all. Five planets in retrograde. Eclipse season. The Lion's Gate Portal. One minute you may feel fine and the next you may find yourself, like me, crying on the bathroom floor.

A lot of your old shit may get dragged back up to the surface again. Wounds you thought you'd healed. Beliefs you thought you'd released. Patterns of behaviour you thought no longer ran your life.

And a whole lot of fear about being a Wild Mystic Woman in a world that fears our truth, our sovereignty and our embodiment.

Fear of being wild and instinctual in a tamed and conditioned world.Fear of being mystical in a world that overvalues rationality.Fear of being a woman in a patriarchal world running on toxic masculinity.

All of this and more may be coming up for you now.

Whatever comes up, it's okay. Let it come up.

Cry. Rage. Grieve. Surrender.

And then use the tools you have (books, ritual, energy work, archetypes, poetry, cards, meditation, prayer, truth-telling, nature and whatever else you can find) to help you heal what needs to be healed, so that you no longer have to internalise the fear that the world has about you as a Wild Mystic Woman.

Read these words very carefully:

You are a Wild Mystic Woman. Your presence on this Earth is necessary.

We need your voice.We need your medicine.We need you to remember who you are.And we need you to own it.

All of it.

If the world is afraid of you, that is their problem. The biggest act of service you can do for us is to show up fully in your, truth without apology. When you do that, you teach us how to do it for ourselves, too.

So that one day we'll remember, there is nothing to fear and everything to love about being a Wild Mystic Woman.